Event Calendar & News: Faculty News

Dr. Hutcheson's "hist whist" arranged for children's chorus, featured on MSU Children's Choir Tenth Anniversary CD
The MSU Children’s Choir’s Tenth Anniversary CD, released in October 2003, features

e.e. cumming’s poem-turn-musical piece hist whist, about witches and goblins. Dr. Jere Hutcheson, professor of composition, set the poem to music for soprano, alto, tenor and bass chorus in 1965. Mary Alice Stollak, director of the MSU Children’s Choir, requested that he arrange the piece for children’s choir in Fall 2003. John Richard, a doctoral student in composition, arranged the piece under Hutcheson’s direction.

“I knew right from the start that hist whist would fit well in children's voices, with its use of singing, whispering and high vocal siren sounds,” said Stollak. “The children loved performing it and portraying the scary nature of being surrounded by witches and goblins. I’ve had many requests for the piece.”

During the past year, the Children’s Choir performed the piece in Chicago and in the Lansing area for choral teachers. It will perform it again in February 2004 as part of its program for the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) Central Division Convention, as well as at the ACDA-Michigan convention at Calvin College on Halloween.

“Children's choir directors are always looking for well written pieces that challenge the singers as well as giving them a fine musical experience, hist whist does that,” added Stollak.

The piece was initially published in the book “Music for the High School Chorus,” co-authored by James Niblock, MSU professor emeritus of composition/theory, and Hutcheson for Allyn and Bacon. The book included works drawn from the past three hundred years of music history along with contemporary compositions that Dr. Hutcheson and Niblock either wrote themselves or commissioned. One of Dr. Hutcheson’s creations was hist whist, later published by Walton Music. The work has been a favorite with mixed choruses for decades.

“I had always liked e. e. cummings, and was delighted when I came across hist whist, said Dr. Hutcheson. “To transform the poem into music, I conjured musical ideas to convey the meaning of the text. I'll often sit at the keyboard, read a line or two from the text I'm setting, and let my fingers spring into action. The piece is itchy and twitchy, just like the poem,” said Dr. Hutcheson.